'National disgrace': Abuse in care survivors failed by state, inquiry finds

Wednesday, 15 December 2021

A new independent redress system for abuse in care survivors will be created after a royal commission found decades of systemic failures by government led to those seeking justice being retraumatised, rejected and disbelieved.

The Government has committed to creating an independent survivor-focused system, known as puretumu torowhānui, with Māori, Pasifika, disabled people and other key communities at its forefront.

Nearly 100 recommendations were made on the redress process by the royal commission, which on Wednesday released an interim report looking at survivors’ experiences seeking justice over the decades.

It is investigating the abuse of children, young people and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions in Aotearoa between 1950 and 1999.

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The interim report called for urgent action to restore the mana of survivors, many of whom for decades were not believed or had their experiences downplayed or dismissed, and were rejected and dismissed by the Crown.

It was presented at Parliament on Wednesday, with a key recommendation of creating a new independent system for survivors to seek justice.

The report paints a picture of repeated sexual, physical and emotional abuse perpetrated by people in positions of power.

Estimates suggest up to 250,000 children, young people and at-risk adults were abused in state and faith-based care between 1950 and 2019. However, historical care and abuse data is very poor.

Māori, Pacific people, Deaf and disabled communities were abused more than any other groups.

“Our report details the horrific abuse survivors suffered in state and faith-based care. Much of the abuse in care was criminal. Some of it was torture,” commission chairwoman Judge Coral Shaw said.

Later in life, in their quest for redress, survivors were forced to approach the very institutions that had employed their abusers and in doing so, were subjected to another form of abuse.

Shaw said that historically, state and faith organisations were not willing to accept the widespread abuse that could have easily been uncovered.

“The costs were too high. They convinced themselves there wasn’t a systemic, widespread problem,” she said.

“Their claims sat in in-trays for months or years. They struggled to get their personal records and when they did, some were so heavily redacted they could barely make sense of them.

“A determined few continued their struggle in the courts, only to run into legal brick walls, the most overwhelming being accident compensation legislation and limitation defences.”

Even if successful, survivors received “modest” monetary compensation, sometimes barely enough to buy a secondhand car, while facing life-long debilitating effects of the abuse.

The commission heard evidence from thousands of survivors who detailed the failures of the institutions charged with their care which instead allowed abuse to happen on their watch and then failed to provide meaningful redress.

As one survivor of repeated sexual abuse in the foster system said: “I felt like I was being raped over and over again by the system that claimed good faith to redress historical abuse.”

Shaw said survivors continued to suffer while waiting for puretumu torowhānui, due to the traumatic and negative connotations many survivors associated with the word redress.

“We are indebted to the hundreds of survivors we have worked with,” Shaw said. “Their bravery has given us the tools to create this report and therefore begin the healing process. The experiences we have heard have been heart-breaking and beyond belief.”

Speaking to media about the report on Wednesday, Chris Hipkins, as Minister for the Public Service, described the lengthy process for survivors to get redress as “a national disgrace”.

“My message to the survivors is an acknowledgement that it has taken far too long to get to this point,” he said. “That is something that I think the whole country should be sorry for and that we should all regret.

“Their voices have now been heard and one of the key messages that has come out of hearing the voices is that they want a redress system that is meaningful and that they can have trust and confidence in.”

Internal Affairs Minister Jan Tinetti said work was under way to address the “many years of avoidable harm”. She found the survivors’ experiences “incredibly harrowing”.

The new system should be based on a series of te ao Māori, Pacific and human rights principles, values and concepts, and co-ordinate the work of various agencies and provide a range of services to survivors and their whānau, the report said.

The report also recommends the governor-general, prime minister, and leaders of faith-based institutions apologise for the abuse that occurred and the harm it caused.

Hipkins said he was not ruling out the apology being delivered prior to the royal commission delivering its final report in June 2023, to acknowledge survivors who are elderly and terminally ill.

However, Shaw said, survivors “should not have to wait for a remedy for the horrors they suffered”.

“We hope this report begins to give survivors the voice they have been denied but have always deserved,” she said.